


Northern Corduroy Brothers

by iwatch_thebees



Category: Pulp (Band), The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 19:29:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7002415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwatch_thebees/pseuds/iwatch_thebees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jarvis Cocker is Howard Moon's brother?? It's better if you don't think about it too much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Northern Corduroy Brothers

**Author's Note:**

> for plastic-tulips (hope ur happy pal)

The buzzer for the flat was going off and Vince bounded down the stairs shouting over his shoulder.

“I’ll get it!” No one else bothered to even get up. When Vince swung the door open he found a tall slender man in a brown suit smoking a cigarette. When the man noticed him, he dropped the cigarette to the ground and stamped it out with a heeled boot. “Uh... hey.” The tall man looked Vince up and down.

“Hello. Is Howard here?”

“Yeah, er...” Vince shouted up the stairs without taking his eyes off the man. “Howard! There’s some guy here to see you!”

Thumping could be heard from above as Howard walked over to the top of the stairs.

“Vince, what? What g-“ Howard stopped when he saw the man’s face. “Jarvis... What are you doing here?”

“Well I’ve come to see me brother, haven’t I?” Vince looked quickly back and forth between the man and Howard.

“Brother? You’re Howard’s _brother_? Howard, you never told me you had a brother!” Howard went red in the face.

“He never told you about me? That’s a bit cruel.” The man extended a hand towards Vince. “I’m Jarvis. And despite what he tells you I am in fact his brother.”

“Half-brother,” Howard said coldly.

“Alright, if it makes you feel better.” After shaking Vince’s hand, Jarvis shrugged. “Can I come in then?”

“Of course!” Vince said eagerly. “I can make some tea if you want.”

“Yeah, cheers.” Jarvis stepped lithely into the flat, closing the door behind him as Vince bounded up the stairs.

“This is so exciting, Howard!” Vince said as he passed by, Howard still standing firmly in place with a glare. When Jarvis reached him he clapped a hand upon Howard’s shoulder.

“Nice to see you, too.”

“What brings you here? Just to see Howard?” Vince called from the kitchen as he tried to find some clean mugs.

“I’m in town with the band actually and thought I’d stop by.” Vince quickly turned around.

“Band? You’re in a band?”

“Sure, I’m the singer,” Jarvis said as he sat down on their couch.

“I’m a singer too! Howard and I are in a band!” Vince was nearly bouncing with excitement while Howard looked positively miserable. Jarvis raised an eyebrow and turned a sneer towards Howard.

“It is a jazz band?” Howard clenched his fists. “Calm down, I’ve come to visit not pick a fight. Sit, I want to talk to you.” Howard sat down with a huff.

“What about?”

“What’ve you been up to? I’ve not seen you for years now, you don’t call or anything.”

“Neither do you.”

“Right, but I’m willing to bet I’m a lot busier than you are.” Vince came over cautiously holding three cups of tea.

“How come Howard’s never said anything about you?” Vince seemed unaware that any hostility was present.

“Ah, Howard and I never got along that well, you see. He’s always been a bit jealous of me.”

“I have not!” Howard said, but the volume of his voice clearly gave him away.

“It makes sense you’re only half-brothers,” Vince said. “’Cause I was gonna say you don’t look anything alike! ‘Cept for all the brown corduroy, but yours looks well cool. Cords and heels – genius! Where do you shop? I’ve been wanting to get some more brown in my wardrobe.”

“Since when?” Howard blurted out. Vince blushed.

“For a while... I’ve just not said anything ‘til now!” Jarvis smiled.

“I get vintage second-hand mostly. I’ve been meaning to pick up a few new items. You could come with me tomorrow, if you want.”

“I’m afraid Vince and I have to work the shop tomorrow, so he won’t be able to go,” Howard said smugly, but Vince quickly shook his head.

“No, I can get Bollo to cover for me, he owes me one!”

“Fine, then we can go tomorrow morning.” Jarvis set down his unfinished cup of tea and looked at his watch. “I’ve got to be at rehearsal in a bit, so I think I might as well go now.”

“But you just got here!” Vince looked a bit disappointed. “You should stay, we could go out for dinner or something.”

“Maybe when Howard’s in a better mood.” Howard scowled at him. “Besides, I will see you tomorrow. Vince, right?” Vince nodded. “Alright, see you tomorrow, Vince. Goodbye, Howard, it was very lovely talking to you.”

“Bye.” Howard said through clenched teeth. Jarvis smirked, gave a small salute towards Vince, and exited the flat.

“Your brother’s so cool, Howard!” Vince was smiling largely. “You sure you’re related?”

“You tart. He’s here for five minutes and you’re falling all over him.”

“I think he got all the genes for fashion and bone structure and you ended up with the extra ones for jazz and flimsy moustaches.”

“Oh, shut up.”

 

Jarvis had come round that morning to pick Vince up, and Howard was now hunched over the shop counter pouting. They’d had one customer in all day, and Bollo never returned from his lunch break so he was most likely napping upstairs. ‘ _Jarvis_ ,’ Howard thought. ‘ _What’s so great about Jarvis? I wear just as much corduroy as he does – more even – and Vince never compliments me on it. Bone structure, ha! That’s all he is, bone structure. Strong gust of wind and he’d topple over like he was a cardboard cutout_.’

Just then the shop door opened with a ding, and Jarvis and Vince walked in holding a variety of shopping bags. Vince was giggling loudly at something Jarvis obviously had just said.

“Michael Jackson, _really_?! Genius!” Vince turned towards Howard who wasn’t making eye contact. “Hey, Howard! Jarvis and I had so much fun today. I got these great flared cords and Jarvis even got a sequined tie from TopShop!” Vince pulled the tie out of the bag and held it up to Jarvis to demonstrate. Howard glanced over.

“Wouldn’t have thought you’d go in for sequins, Jarvis.”

“Well, you’ve got to have a bit of surprise in the pop business, haven’t you?”

Vince and Jarvis went upstairs into the flat. Howard continued to mope around in the shop until closing time. When he came upstairs he found all the furniture had been pushed to the sides of the room, and Vince and Jarvis were jumping around dancing.

“What’re you doing?”

“Jarvis is showing me some new moves, Howard! He’s got a well cool way of moving around. I’ll have lots of new shapes to throw at our next show!”

“When is your next show, Howard?” asked Jarvis. “I’d love to catch a bit of it while I’m still in town.”

“That’d be great!” Vince gasped.

“Nothing’s scheduled yet, but I’ll keep you posted,” Howard said, pushing a chair out of the way to get to the kitchen.

“Well I’m doing a show tonight if you both wanted to come along,” said Jarvis, and Howard immediately braced himself for Vince’s loud reaction.

“Of course we want to, don’t we Howard!” Vince grinned expectantly at Howard who didn’t have the heart to let him down.

“Sure,” Howard shortly replied.

“Wonderful, well...” Jarvis reached into his jacket, pulling out two tickets and handed them to Vince. “Time and place are on them. I’m counting on you both being there now, you better not let me down.” He looked at his watch. “Speaking of which I’ve got to go if I want to be there on time. I will see you both there.” He then gave a wave and left Vince grinning and Howard scowling.

 

The concert was loud and wild with lots of flashing lights and Jarvis throwing his limbs in every direction imaginable. Vince was enthralled but Howard couldn’t have been more unhappy. Jarvis had everyone’s attention. Howard had never had that many people paying attention to him. It was just like when they were kids – Jarvis was in a band, Jarvis was cool; Howard just shut himself in his room and listened to his jazz records. The band was now finishing up a song, and when the crowd cheered louder than ever, Howard’s anger grew and grew and grew and grew. Suddenly he shouted to Vince over the noise.

“I’M GOING!” And he turned around, pushing his way through the crowd.

“Howard, wait!” Vince tried to grab him, but Howard had moved too far out of reach.

“Ta!” Jarvis spoke to the crowd, out of breath from all of his antics. “Thank you all very very much for being here tonight. It means a lot to all of us, the whole band. Every one of you here is very special to us.” Howard had pushed his way nearly to the back of the crowd, rolling his eyes at all of Jarvis’ words. “Though there’s one person in particular who’s here tonight who means a great deal to me. That’s me brother, Howard. Howard! Where are ya?”

Howard froze and turned back toward the stage. Jarvis was squinting out into the audience searching for him. Suddenly Howard found a spotlight was put on him.

“Hiding in the back! Howard’s my brother, and we spent a great deal of time together whilst we were both growing up. I’d always wanted to be in a band, and was always searching out new ways of trying stuff, ways to be different. I s’pose it paid off eventually, but at the time I was rubbish at the whole thing. The one who was never rubbish at it though, was Howard. He was never afraid to be himself – it seemed to me at least – and I always looked up to him in that respect.”

Howard was rooted to the spot, caught completely off guard by Jarvis’ words. Never once had Jarvis ever mentioned these things to Howard, and here he was telling them to a huge crowd of people!

“Well, I say ‘looked up to him’, but more like I was jealous. For many years I let that jealousy get in the way of us being brothers. So tonight I say to hell with it! Howard, come up here!”

Howard was rushed to the stage by the crowd and boosted onto the stage. The whole band was smiling at him, though Jarvis was smiling the most. Vince was in the front of the crowd doing a poor job of holding all his joyous emotions in. Jarvis stretched out a hand towards Howard.

“What do you say, Howard?” Howard’s moustache twitched about his wobbling lips. He was genuinely touched.

“I’d say I wish you would’ve done this in front of less people.” The whole place erupted into laughter, and with a heavy drumbeat, the band erupted into another song. A guitar was thrust into Howard’s arms, and he stayed on stage the rest of the night.

 

Backstage after the show, Howard and Vince were sat with the band, everyone having drinks.

“Howard,” Jarvis said. “I’ve been thinking about recording some solo material if you wanted to help join me.”

“Not sure, Jarvis, I’m a jazz man at heart. I don’t know if you’d be able to control my raw improvisational powers on some flimsy pop record.”

“Well you see, I’ve been thinking about delving into some darker material.” Howard leaned forward earnestly.

“Tell me more.”

“How familiar are you with edible fungi in the UK?”


End file.
